Promise in Action
What’s Inside 2 From the CEO
3 Mentorship, Internship, and Scholarship Pave the Way for College and Career
4 When Kids Need to Celebrate, Deb Wasser Throws a Party
5 Restoring Government Funding for Nonprofits’ Infrastructure Costs
8 Staff Recognized for Exceptional Service
Summer 2021
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From the CEO When our kids, parents, and staff told me about their favorite moments from this summer, one theme kept emerging: the joy of reconnection. They spoke of the excitement campers felt once they got to high-five their favorite counselor or jump into a pool with friends. Those are the moments we longed to reclaim last year, and the ones we have cherished this summer. Beyond the excitement and joy felt by our community, this ability to reconnect for in-person programming is also fundamental for children’s healthy development. Maintaining social connections is an important part of a young person’s development; and without those connections, isolation and loneliness can be incredibly hard to bear.
Promise in Action A publication of Children’s Aid, helping children in poverty to succeed and thrive. Children’s Aid 117 W. 124th Street, 5th Floor New York, NY 10027
Amy Engel Scharf Chair Phoebe C. Boyer President and Chief Executive Officer
To help kids recover academically and emotionally from the disruptions and trauma of the pandemic, we partnered with the New York City Department of Education to run a new summer enrichment program called Summer Rising. Offered five days a week to elementary school students and four days a week to middle school students, Summer Rising was a hybrid of summer school and summer camp, a balanced blend of learning and play. We were also able to provide our teens with more robust summer job training and internship experiences. And it wasn’t just our young people who benefited. As industries opened up, many parents and guardians were able to get back to work knowing that their children were well cared for by Children’s Aid. Child care solutions are vital for those who are in the process of getting back on their feet. With school starting soon and cases rising due to the delta variant, we know that we are only in the early days of our recovery and are prepared to adjust as needed. At the same time, we are looking forward to in-person school this fall, and we are taking all the proper precautions to maintain a safe and supportive environment for our kids. As long as we can do so safely, we will continue to offer in-person programs to children, youth, and families. We have enjoyed being together again, and I hope to reconnect with you soon, too. Sincerely,
Caroline Gallagher Chief Development Officer Anthony Ramos Vice President, Marketing and Communications ChildrensAidNYC.org 212.949.4936 2
Children’s Aid | SPRING 2020 Children’s Aid | SUMMER 2021
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Phoebe C. Boyer President and Chief Executive Officer On the Cover: At our Goodhue Community Center on Staten Island, kids are both photo subjects as well as photographers. The two friends from Goodhue featured on the cover are posing for a picture taken by another one of their peers. They all participated in an art and photography class, where they learned about composition and zooming in on photograph subjects.
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Mentorship, Internship, and Scholarship Pave the Way for College and Career Success Thierno has been a participant at our Hope Leadership Academy in Harlem for three years — a community center for teens that offers after-school and weekend enrichment programming — where he participated in culinary competitions, job readiness workshops, and even a field trip to Washington, D.C. Then, through a partnership we have with JPMorgan Chase, Hope helped Thierno prepare for, apply, and secure an internship at the Fortune 500 company, providing him with his first foray into banking and finance.
During his senior year at high school, Thierno Diallo was not planning a senior trip or snapping photos at graduation. Like so many other students his age, he was spending what was supposed to be one of the most memorable years of a young person’s life quarantining at home. But instead of sulking, he decided to use that time to be productive. “I was finally able to sit down and dive deep within my soul to determine where in life I was headed,” said Thierno. He knew what he liked — law, medicine, cars, science, and math. But after introspection, Thierno considered his experiences with Children’s Aid, and landed on a career that could incorporate a variety of his interests — business.
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After his internship inspired him to study business, his mentors worked with him to apply to New York University’s Stern School of Business, one of the most competitive in the country. He applied, waited in anticipation, and then received an email one day when he was at home with his family. Confetti erupted on the screen, and screams followed — he was accepted into the class of 2025. While this was a cause for celebration, New York University’s tuition, frankly, was not. Thierno qualified for financial aid, but the remaining balance was still too steep, especially after the pandemic’s impact on his family’s finances. After getting this far, his Children’s Aid mentors encouraged him to apply for a Children’s Aid scholarship to close that remaining gap — and due to his merits, he was awarded $8,000 in assistance. When asked about Hope’s role in helping him achieve his success, Thierno said, “The high standards they held for us are what pushed us to strive to be better versions of ourselves every day. I can’t thank them enough for all they’ve done and Children’s Aid for making this all possible.”
Promise in Action Executive Update Children’s Aid therapist Tiffany Watson-Labbate was recently honored by the Staten Island Partnership for Community Wellness’ Black Excellence in Public Health Awards as a “Champion in Behavioral Health.” New York City ’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and the Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies honored Children’s Aid Prevention Services staff members Linda McAndrew, Christine Sirianni, and Melissa Torres this spring. The three received ACS Child Advocacy Awards for their outstanding efforts this year at the 2021 ACS Child Abuse Prevention Month Closing Ceremony. 3
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Every Step of the Way
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When Kids Need to Celebrate, Deb Wasser Throws a Party
3+ months gained in reading among students at our fiveweek summertime South Bronx “Recovery Lab,” which helped them transition back to school.
97% of families reported they are satisfied with our Early Childhood services received this past year.
96% of our Next Generation Center’s systems-involved youth nearly or fully completed at least one major goal, such as securing a job, graduating high school, earning a High School Equivalency diploma, and/or enrolling in college. 4
Children’s Aid | SPRING SUMMER 2020 2021
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After a 1 1/2 year hiatus due to COVID-19, Children’s Aid supporter and volunteer Deb Wasser is ready to once again get the party started at our Dunlevy Milbank Community Center in Harlem. It all began in 2013 when Deb turned 50 and decided to focus on her true passion: giving back. She closed her successful event business and met with Eddie Britt and Casper Lassiter, Children’s Aid staff who run Milbank. She told them, “So I have this whole party company. I have a DJ, MCs, phenomenal hip-hop dancers, costumes, disco ball lights, cotton candy machines, and cases and cases of party favors. Let’s get this going for kids who haven’t been celebrated.” Soon after, they began hosting parties for children and youth nearly every Saturday, celebrating birthdays, accomplishments, or other milestones. She also made each child a photo book so they have something concrete to take home with them after the party ends. Deb said that over the years, she learned a lot about the kids and some of the challenges they face. She found ways to use that learning to customize her events for each young person’s circumstances. “If your family lives in
a shelter, parents may not be able to bake a cake or invite people over,” she said. “Or sometimes there were kids who were on the autism spectrum who would be very uncomfortable having the spotlight on them, and yet we were able to draw them out and do something that would be nice for them.” Through Deb’s efforts, more than 50 children have had celebrations at Milbank. One of the most memorable for Casper was a birthday celebration for a child who lived in a homeless shelter a few blocks away from Milbank. “We have a partnership with this shelter and thought it would be nice to have a party for one of the young people who lived there with his family,” Casper said. “The kid didn’t really have any friends to invite, so we invited kids from the program who were the same age.” Deb’s in-person parties are finally resuming this fall at Milbank, and kids are “...lining up at the door waiting for her,” Eddie said. We hope to continue the parties as long as it is safe to do so, but will continue to monitor the delta variant. The safety and well-being of our children will always be the top priority. Photo credit: Jillian Nelson
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Restoring Government Funding for Nonprofits’ Infrastructure Costs
This past year, Children’s Aid stood with other New York City nonprofits, providers, and advocates to fight back against devastating cuts to the Indirect Cost Rate (ICR) initiative. Indirect costs are the expenses you do not see when you walk through the front door of an organization, but help to keep that front door open. These investments allow nonprofits to enhance technology, recruit and train talented staff, improve facilities, and fund other infrastructure costs for our programs and kids. In 2019, when the city’s ICR initiative announced that it would for the first time reimburse nonprofits their full, negotiated indirect cost rate from fiscal year (FY) 2020 to FY 2022, we celebrated. But in August 2020, after Children’s Aid’s FY 2020 ended and the money was spent, the city announced a retroactive cut to the ICR initiative. By reneging on its promise to fully fund the ICR, the city dealt a devastating blow to the human services sector at a time when we incurred considerable costs from the pandemic and were already vulnerable. At that point, we pinned our strategy on the strong relationships we have built over many years with our government and nonprofit partners. At the state level, we are members of the Strong Nonprofits for a Better New York coalition. On the city level, we are members of the Human Services Council. Our President and CEO, Phoebe C. Boyer, sits on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Nonprofit Resiliency Committee, co-chaired the Committee’s Service and Program Design group, and served in the mayor’s ICR Provider Working Group. From within these networks, we organized a fullfledged advocacy campaign to restore ICR. We submitted testimony to the New York City Council on restoring the ICR rate compensation, participated in coalition meetings to advocate for the ICR rate, and signed on to several letters advocating for its restoration — and it paid off. In late April, thanks to our advocacy and that of our partners, the mayor and Speaker Corey Johnson announced full funding to cover the ICR initiative in FY 2021 and increased baseline funding to get the program back on track for future years. This means providers will receive 100% of their approved indirect funding this year instead of the previously announced cut of up to 70%. Most importantly, this means that organizations like ours will be able to allocate more of our private donations toward expanding our programs and serving more kids.
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Photo Key: 1. Chris Brady, a member of the Golf Classic Host Committee, warms up on the putting green. 2. (Left to right) Children’s Aid CEO Phoebe C. Boyer, Children’s Aid Trustee and Assistant Treasurer Linda Kao, and Golf Classic Committee and Baltusrol member Jon Harrington. 3. Chris Guzman swings from the tee. 4. Steve Sclafani swings from the tee. 5. (Left to right) Eddie Greenberg, Mark Diker, Lindsay Ornstein, and Bradley Stern. 6. Student speaker Myles Dawson and Chief Development Officer Caroline Gallagher. 7. (Left to right) Marc Ferrara, Chris Brady, auctioneer and sportscaster Bob Papa, and Nelson Perez. 8. (Left to right) Bill Wang, Chris Ade, Phil Passafiume, and Richard Keri. 6
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14 6 Photo Key: 9. (Left to right) Jolt Mena, Hugo Pizarro, Roberto Hormazabal, and Robin James. 10. Mark Allen, our Golf Classic Committee co-chair, delivers remarks at the evening ceremony. 11. Groups of students from our Goodhue Community Center on Staten Island each picked a country to represent at our “Goodhue Center Olympics” opening ceremony this summer. 12. Working in partnership with FoodCorps, we completed a community garden restoration in the Bronx this past spring. It now provides fresh foods to our children at Samara Community School, and to the neighborhood as a whole. 13. Our Annual Art Show, held virtually in June, celebrated hundreds of pieces of student artwork from our after-school program throughout the school year. These featured drawings were created by fifth graders at C.S. 61 Francisco Oller as they learned about the abstract artist Sonia Delaunay. 14. A child celebrates her moving up ceremony from our Head Start program at C.S. 211 in the South Bronx.
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Staff Recognized for Exceptional Service in social work school, and I knew then that I wanted to work with children and families in a community setting.” Dunlevy Milbank Community Center Director Casper Lassiter, a Children’s Aid employee since 1994, was also recognized for his work. Under Casper’s leadership during the pandemic, Milbank served as a hub for our hunger relief efforts, in-person and remote Learning Lab programs, COVID-19 testing, and more. Ilene Pappert (left) and Casper Lassiter (right), who have served at our agency for decades, were recently honored for their commitment to our clients on Staten Island and in Harlem. Since she started as an intern 44 years ago, Ilene Pappert has been an integral part of the Children’s Aid Goodhue Community Center on Staten Island. Now the center director, Ilene was honored with a First Generation Award at the Jewish Community Center of Staten Island’s 12th Annual Nancy Avis L’Dor V’Dor Awards in April. “I have been privileged to have worked for the Children’s Aid Goodhue Center for 44 years,” Ilene said. “I started when I was
In April, the New York Knicks recognized Casper’s invaluable contributions and named him “Coach of the Week” for his role in keeping youth active through the Milbank boys and girls basketball program this past year. After many months cooped up inside, Casper and his staff safely welcomed back students to basketball practice. “What I always say about my program is, ‘It’s always going to be bigger than basketball,’” Casper said. “The community actually saved me, so I think it’s my obligation to pass that on to the next generation.”
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